As a technique for manufacturing a magnetic recording medium, there is a technique of employing a transfer master which has a predetermined land/groove pattern on a surface and in which at least the surface is magnetized, to magnetically transfer the information corresponding to the land/groove pattern of the transfer master to a slave medium.
Conventional magnetic transfer is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2002-163823 by way of example. The magnetic transfer is performed by employing a pair of gripping members having a mechanism for holding a transfer master by air suction, applying a magnetic field to the transfer master and a slave medium gripped by the gripping members, and rotating the gripping members to apply the magnetic field to the transfer master and slave medium in a predetermined direction.
In the aforementioned conventional technique, a magnetic field is applied to the transfer master and the slave medium through the gripping members. Particularly, in the case of manufacturing magnetic recording media of relatively small diameters, it is preferable to make the gripping members as thin as possible and move magnetic field application means as close as possible to the transfer master and the slave medium, in order to apply a magnetic field satisfactorily to the transfer master and the slave medium.
However, in the aforementioned conventional technique, the gripping members are equipped with the mechanism for holding the transfer master by air suction, so there is a limit to the thinning of the gripping members.
Meanwhile, in magnetic transfer, a microscopic magnetic pattern is transferred with a transfer master and a slave medium held in nearly direct contact with each other, so the flatness and thickness of the transfer master and the slave medium are required to be maintained with a high degree of accuracy. This leads to high costs of the transfer apparatus and the magnetic recording medium.